Validação empírica do Questionário Geral de Conforto para pessoas com Infarto Agudo do Miocárdio

Abstract

Introduction: The comfort phenomenon, one of the goals of nursing care, needs to be measured by valid and reliable instruments, which do not exist for people with myocardial infarction. Objective: To evaluate the empirical validity of the General Questionnaire on Comfort for People with Acute Myocardial Infarction (GCAM-AMI). Method: The methodological study was guided by the Classical Theory of Tests (TCT) and by Katherine Kolcaba's Theory of Comfort, complementing the process of cross-cultural adaptation of the GCQ-IAM to the Bahian context. The sample consisted of 182 patients with AMI admitted to four ICUs and two coronary hospitalization units from four public hospitals in the state of Bahia, which met the eligibility criteria. Two data collection instruments were used, one composed of sociodemographic and clinical characterization data of the participants, and the other was the IQM-IQC, whose content validity stage was performed in a previous study. The GCQ-AMI consists of 63 items referring to three senses of comfort (calm, relief and transcendence) experienced in four contexts (physical, psycho-spiritual, sociocultural and environmental). The Principal Components Exploratory Factor Analysis (PCA) was used using the Pearson correlation matrix with the 63 items of the GCQ-AMI. The reliability was analyzed by the coefficient of internal consistency, Cronbach's alpha. Results: After several analytical steps, a structure was obtained with 14 items and three factors related to comfort contexts, called psychobiological, psychosocial and psycho-spiritual. The reliability analysis by the Cronbach coefficient of internal consistency revealed satisfactory reliability values for the general measure (0.706). Conclusion: The GCQ-AMI achieved the psychometric properties necessary to be considered valid and reliable.